1633 : The American Naturalist. [November, 
quered equally certain of a wife. —“a Jill for every Jack,” so to 
speak. 
Birds most noted for polygamy are least adapted for escape by 
flight, and because of their terrestrial habits are more intimately 
associated for self-preservation. They are more liable to the 
attack of enemies both terrestrial and aerial, less migratory or 
capable of migration, and hence suffer more from vicissitudes of 
weather. Their habit of family association, added to the pugnac- 
ity of the males and clannishness of the females, results fatally to 
the weaker males, while the majority of those that survive are 
ostracized (another form of death) because of their inability to find - 
a mate outside the harem. It is apparent, therefore, that the 
Gallinz, on account of their physique and ancestral predilections, 
were constitutionally more likely to develop polygamous habits 
as they rose in the scale of being than the higher insessorial 
groups. I am disposed to believe that careful scrutiny of the 
habits of the Trochilide and Paradiseide will reveal that the 
former does not contain any polygamous species, but that the 
latter as a family generally practice it. 
I base such a prediction purely on analogical reasoning from 
what is presented in the preceding paragraph. The Trochilide 
are remarkably pugnacious, but for structural reasons are quite 
harmless combatants, however furious and spiteful their contests 
may appear.’ Further, their powers of flight enable them to 
escape each other, to seek and find females over a vast expanse of 
country, and to escape destruction from enemies despite their high 
ornamentation. With the birds of paradise we are less ac- 
quainted, but from their habit of assembling in certain trees for 
parade during courtship it is to be inferred that similar results to 
those always incident to such assemblages among polygam- 
ous species are likely tooccur. The activity and flight-power 
of birds of paradise, according to Wallace, is remarkable, 
enabling them to escape their natural enemies; but during 
the pairing season the magnificent plumes of the three- 
year-old males render their flight more laborious and the 
5 See, however, account of battle between three males in Abbott's “ Upland and Mead- 
OW," PP. 144, 145. 
